Create a Multi-modal Sustainable North-South Burlington Corridor by Adding Companion Light Rail to: The “Burlington Bikepath” Gets a City Length Twin, “Ethan Allen Bikeway”?
—the Burlington “North-South Multi-mode Corridor”: sidewalk,
separate bike facility and light rail
Within a day or two of proposing a north-south separate/safe bikeway it became clear from feedback one needs to add a companion which came up in discussions of various planning and development undertakings including the North Avenue Corridor Plan, the Rail Enterprise Project (REP), Sinex’s initial public meetings on City Place and various Pine Street meetings on a workable Champlain Parkway: a north-south light rail line. To use a name to start (community must make the final one) let’s call it the “Burlington Green Corridor” (BTVGC). The BTVGC features a north (from Flynn School) to South (continuing into South Burlington from Pine St/Queen City Park Rd/I 189-Parkway) a sidewalk, a separate/safe bicycle facility and a light rail line (like the new system opening this year in Montreal and found in Toronto, Sacramento, San Francisco and my other North American cities).
Most Burlington recent transportation planning centered on connecting the waterfront, Marketplace and UVM/UVMMC—that was the route chosen in the 1990s in a light rail study. In Sinex’s City Place I even suggested a north-south and waterfront—UVM line would intersect in an underground station.
So, a multi-modal north-south corridor composed of light rail, a separate and safe bike facilitation (protected bike lanes [cycle track] and two-way bikeway, and a sidewalk. A plan process can get us ready for a sustainable future in the Queen City, the Burlington Green Corridor!
Here is the bike corridor put out over the weekend. Please excuse the name “Ethan Allen”—any name should be something determined by the Burlington community at large—Alexander Twilight and Abenaki have been mentioned—Montpelier went through a public process in naming Stonecutter’s Way and the East West Bikepath, Siboinibe.
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A series of unrelated planning, policy, and advocacy processes weave a new and very possible bikeway route from Plattsburgh Ave in the New North End to the South Burlington border at Queen City Park Road and Pine Street—the “Ethan Allen Bikeway” route.
The “Ethan Allen” features 100% protected bike lanes (cycle track)/or a separate 10-foot wide two-way dedicated bikeway. The difference between the “Ethan Allen” and the “Burlington Bikepath” (Bikepath) is two fold: first, the Ethan Allen is for cyclists only and, second, it is a fully lit, year-round maintained transportation facility.
There are at least four key sections which have been discussed separately: (1) the North Avenue Corridor Plan (2014) which calls for cycle track end-to-end, Plattsburgh Ave to North Street; (2) the North Champlain two-way bikeway between Manhattan Drive and Pearl Street though the heart of the Old North End; (3) the City Place reconnection of Pine Street between Cherry and Pearl Streets; and (4) in its latest iteration, the Pine Street Coalition redesign guidelines in the form of New Street ( SafeStreetsBurlington.com ) developed this spring which extends a separate bikeway from Curtis Lumber/Kilburn Street through to Home Avenue even further on the Parkway to connect with Queen City Park Road and Pine Street, the interchange with I 189.
Two planning documents completed in 2017 provide a backdrop to the Ethan Allen outlining parts of it as protected bikelanes or a bikeway: PlanBTV Walk Bike adopted by the City Council and “Active Transportation,” the plan completed by the Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission.
Here are some further important “connectors” necessary:
- Starting from Plattsburgh Ave, there would be a link from North Ave to the North Champlain Bikeway via Ward St and Manhattan Drive, or North Street.
- A one-block “jog” occurs between North Champlain at Pearl Street and Pine Street—likely by protected bike lanes.
- Pine Street from Pearl to Main Street involves addition of protected bike lanes and the necessary re-design of the restored Pine Street through City Place which currently has no provision for quality, separate, bicycle accommodation.
- As everyone knows, there is not a single inch of protected bike lanes along the existing design of the Champlain Parkway—a key reason (along with a net loss of sidewalk and not a single inch of sidewalk along the Parkway route, no roundabouts, etc., etc.!!) the Walk Bike Council endorsed the Pine Street Coalition Redesign Guidelines in 2016. At that time the separate two-way bikeway from Kilburn St/Curtis Lumber ended at the Home Ave/Parkway intersection. Thinking has evolved in part from new Coalition members from the “borderlands” residential areas both in South Burlington (Red Rocks, for example) and Burlington’s southwest corner area. So the idea came forth to extend the bikeway right down to Queen City Park Rd/I 189/Pine Street Parkway interchange. This also recognizes the importance of City Market South End as a major attraction of walk/bike trips in a wide area. Of course, New Street provides an at-grade connection between Ethan Allen and Bikeway at Sears Lane/Harrison Ave at Lakeside Terrace.
The above presents an outline with details that need to be filled in along the entire route through a full corridor planning effort—but if the Parkway can be redesigned to accommodate all cyclists and the City Place Pine Street altered to add dedicated cycle service, an Ethan Allen is a very real possibility!
Tony Redington
August 4, 2020
